ALIVE - R. BOWEN

three

Ricky opened the front door of his house using his key, he dropped his bag at the door and kicked off his shoes. "Dad, I'm home." He said as a formality as he made his way to the stairs to coop himself up in his room until his dad forced him to come down for dinner.

"Ricky," his dad said, coming out of their in home office. It had been a while since Ricky had seen his dad get anything done and that included things for work. "How was your first day?" His dad asked, eagerly hoping that Ricky would actually have something positive to say.

Ricky shrugged, "Eh. It's better than that Catholic school you tried to send me to." Ricky cringed at the thought, "I mean we're not even Catholic what were you thinking?" Ricky rambled.

"I was thinking that maybe we'd talk about your first day at East High." Mike folded just arms and raised an eyebrow, clearly outsmarting his son as Ricky gave him one of his famous eye rolls. "Did you make any friends. What about that Gina girl?" His dad pried.

"She's cool I guess. I don't know I don't really see us staying friends. But she did introduce me to this guy named Big Red. I think maybe, I don't know, I guess he seems kinda cool." Ricky's ego was showing, he was trying not to sound excited about having a friend that wasn't necessarily a bad influence.

Mike smiled, genuinely happy that his son may actually be adapting. "That's great Ricky! We both know you're grounded but if this Big Red character ever asks to hang out, I may just let you bend the rules."

"Uh well," Ricky started, "He said that the skateparks have open skate on Wednesday's so I was thinking that'd maybe I could go with him if that's okay with you." Ricky proposed, already guessing his father's answer.

"Sure, sounds like it could be a fun time." Mike said.

Ricky stood there awkwardly for a few seconds before saying "Well, uh thanks," before turning around and running up to his room.

"What a joke." He said to himself quietly, referring to both the situation before and his life. He pulled out his phone and noticed that his Instagram was blowing up with followers.

@/bigredskates has followed you!

@/ginapdances has followed you!

@/niniukegirl has followed you !

☆彡

Wednesday rolled around and that meant one good thing, Ricky was halfway done with the week.

So far he had made no friends, although Gina did always invite him to have lunch with her and the rag-tag bunch of theatre nerds. He could appreciate the sentiment, however he didn't need it. The table was already crowded enough, and when Nini joined the table on Tuesday there was hardly enough room for her, let alone for Ricky.

Ricky was thrilled when the last bell rang. He walked out of class with Big Red.

"I was thinking that maybe we could skate there because it's not too far away, but if not my house is closer and we can skate to there and I can drive us." Big Red offered, hoping Ricky would choose the former.

Ricky shrugged "Let's just skate there." He picked and Red smiled widely and led the way for them.

From what Ricky could tell, Big Red was a good skater. He even threw in a few little tricks on the way there and Ricky wondered if it was a ploy to impress him or just because Red was having fun and feeling confident.

He would never know, but he found it entertaining regardless.

Ricky hadn't realized that the park was on the other side of town. He'd lived in Salt Lake for most of his life, but there was just so much undiscovered territory for him and as he skated down the road he wondered why he had only kept to the parks by his house.